


A Special Kind of Hate

by asiriusfan



Series: Of Deer and Men [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/M, Fluff, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 16:34:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4794530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asiriusfan/pseuds/asiriusfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus hated her.  But it wasn’t the usual kind of hate where you could just hate the person back and be done with it, oh no. It was a special kind of hate. The kind where a friend will say some terrible, hateful thing like, “Before we go grab our room keys you should know that you’re rooming with James and no, there aren’t any other rooms available and yes, it’s too late to switch,” and he’ll stare while your mouth hangs open (angrily!) with this smirk on his lips and this look in his eyes that says “This is for your own good, Lil,” when it’s clearly not for your own good because now you have to share a bed with the infuriating boy that you haven’t been able to stop thinking about for the past three months, two weeks, and five days.</p>
<p>That kind of hate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Special Kind of Hate

**Author's Note:**

> For Raylee, may your rough patch shrivel up and die. :)

**11:30 PM**

Lily had begun eyeing the room with distaste almost before she was entirely through the door, not because it was hideous, – in fact, it was quite nice – but because of who she had to share it with.

“Look, I’m not happy about this either,” James (lied through his teeth) said, plopping his bag down on the room’s only bed. “But I already told you, I can’t sleep on the ground, it’ll-“ 

“Throw out your precious back, yes, yes, I remember,” Lily cut him off, moving to the other side of the bed and setting her suitcase on the ground beside it.  “I just wish that when I’d received the invitation to see an Arrows game it would have come with a little side note saying that I wouldn’t be sleeping alone the night before.”

“Remus handled the room assignments,” James added, almost defensively.

“I’m sure he did,” Lily said with a huff, not because she didn’t believe him, but simply because she had nothing else to say.

Lily knew very well that Remus had paired everyone off when booking rooms at the small inn, and she knew very well that the reason he said he paired Lily and James is because they were the only two currently un-coupled.  But she also knew the real reason he’d stuck them together: Remus hated her.

He _hated_ her. But it wasn’t the usual kind of hate where you could just hate the person back and be done with it, oh no. It was a special kind of hate. The kind where a friend will say some terrible, hateful thing like, “Before we go grab our room keys you should know that you’re rooming with James and no, there aren’t any other rooms available and yes, it’s too late to switch,” and he’ll stare while your mouth hangs open (angrily!) with this smirk on his lips and this look in his eyes that says “This is for your own good, Lil,” when it’s clearly _not_ for your own good because now you have to share a bed with the infuriating boy that you haven’t been able to stop thinking about for the past three months, two weeks, and five days.

That kind of hate.

So Lily was content to silently fume and bite back sarcastic responses while James – took off his shirt!?

“W-what are you doing?” Lily sputtered.

He turned to face her – shirtless, of course, which certainly didn’t help _anything_ – and held up a pair of pajama pants.  “Changing,” he said simply before heading into the bathroom to finish the job. 

Lily, getting over her shock, quickly threw on her own pajamas while he was out of the room before turning to access the bed. There weren’t enough pillows to make a barrier between them, but it was at least wide enough that they should be able to avoid each other fairly well, granted that James doesn’t roll over in his sleep.

James returned to the room and Lily worked very hard to keep her gaze at eye level.

“You’re forgetting something,” she said.

James looked down, confused, before saying, “I can’t sleep with a shirt on.”

Lily sighed shakily and climbed into the bed. “Of course you can’t,” she muttered, trying very hard to think of the pattern on the wallpaper and not what James’ arms looked like when they weren’t encumbered with sleeves. Before drifting off, she remembered to ask, “You don’t have any annoying sleep habits, do you?”

“No, of course not,” she heard James respond, and with that she drifted off to sleep.

 

**2: 37 AM**

The first thing Lily noticed when she woke was that it was clearly not time for her to be waking up yet, and the second was that she was _freezing_. Looking down, she quickly figured out why; James had stolen all of the blankets.

Made violent by the lateness of the hour (and, if she was being honest with herself, because she was sometimes just a violent person and there was simply nothing to be done about that) she ripped the comforter off of him.

James reacted much more quickly to the change in temperature than Lily did, immediately turning around and looking for the source of the disturbance.

“You stole the blankets,” he said plainly.

“No, _you_ stole the blankets.  _I_ am simply liberating them from a tyrannical blanket hoarder.”

James, for his part, didn’t seem fazed by Lily’s early morning lunacy.  “But I’m cold.”

Lily grabbed absently at the foot of the bed before finding the coverlet that had been kicked down there over the course of the night. “Here,” she said, throwing it at him.

James seemed to consider the thing material in his hands for a moment and Lily was afraid he would try to argue, but eventually he simply said “All right,” and went back to sleep.

 

**3:06 AM**

This time, Lily was woken up by a noise. More to the point, she was woken by a loud, grating noise that she would very much like to find the source of and commit whatever violent acts necessary to get it to stop. Unsurprisingly, her search led her to James.

Showing a level of restraint that Lily was very proud of, she decided that suffocating him in his sleep would be a bit much, and chose to simply hit him in the face with her pillow instead.

“Wha – what?”  James jumped awake with a start.

“You were snoring,” she informed him.

“I was not.”

“How would you know?  You were asleep!  I was the one who had to _hear_ it.”

“So you hit me with a pillow?" 

“It was plan B,” she said with an edge to her tone.

James had the good sense not to ask what plan A was, and instead rolled over and grumbled about madwomen and a decent night’s sleep until he drifted off.

 

**3:42 AM**

“You’ve _got_ to be kidding me.”

Her voice woke James, who groaned and turned to face Lily as she glared.  “What? What _now_?” he asked.

“You talk in your sleep.”

“I do?” James asked, momentarily forgetting his frustration in light of this new fact.

“Has no one ever told you?” Lily asked, also momentarily distracted.

“No, the blokes are pretty heavy sleepers. What was I saying?" 

“You were commentating on an imaginary quidditch match.”

James barked out a laugh, and Lily had to fight back one of her own.  “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m just excited for tomorrow.” 

“Yeah,” Lily said, then remembered that she was supposed to be mad.  Scowling, she added, “So knock it off.”

 

**4:10 AM**

This time, James was woken up by the sensation of hurtling toward the ground, which he quickly realized was because he _was_ hurtling toward the ground. Picking himself up, he rose to stand over Lily, who was awake with her legs sticking out of the blanket, as if she’d just used them to shove him off the bed.  “What is your problem?” he hissed. 

“You kicked me,” she said, tucking her legs back under the blanket and glaring up at him. 

“Hard?”

“No, but that doesn’t make it _pleasant_.”

“This is getting ridiculous,” he said, climbing back into bed.  “We have to get up in a few hours, do you think you can keep from attacking me until then?”

“I can’t make any promises.”

 

**4: 29 AM**

“Who in the _bloody hell_ is singing?” James asked, forcing his eyes open only to see Lily staring at him, shaking with silent laughter. 

“You are,” she managed to get out. 

“What?”

“You sing in your sleep,” she said, and finally laughed out loud.

“I do not,” James said, defensive in the face of her hysterics.

“Yes, you do.  Something about a wicked old hag and a kindly little hare?”

“I – oh.  Maybe that was me.”  Lily laughed louder. “It’s a children’s song! My mum used to sing it to me! It must be stuck in my subconscious!”

“Sure, James, whatever you say.”

  

**4: 58 AM**

Lily awoke yet again, but this time she couldn’t figure out why.  The room was silent, the blankets were in place, there were no legs attacking her person – she should be asleep.  She opened her eyes and was surprised to find James staring at her.

“What?” she asked, but James just shook his head. She propped herself up. “What?” she repeated, more urgent now that she noticed just how soft his gaze was. 

“You were…talking.  In your sleep,” he finally confessed. 

Unease pooled in her stomach at the tenderness she heard in his voice.  “What did I say?” 

He paused, and then, “My name.”

“Oh.”

“Among other things.”

“Oh,” Lily repeated, gathering from the look on his face that she would be less mortified if she didn’t ask what those other things were. 

“But I don’t mind,” he went on after a moment, and Lily suspected he was trying to make the situation more comfortable for her. “I won’t attack you like _some_ people in this bed would.”

Lily laughed.  “In my defense, I’m sure what I was saying wasn’t nearly as annoying as what you were.”

“No,” James said.  “It really wasn’t.”

The smile he gave her after that exchange was so sincere that no one could possibly blame her for offering him his half of the comforter back.  And if she ended up wrapped up in his arms shortly after, well, no one could blame her for that, either.


End file.
